Take Your Freedom Back With IT Managed Services

Are you a small business owner who feels tedious day-to-day tasks limit your ability to reach your goals? Do you wish you could understand and afford the technology you need to compete with the big boys in your market? IT Managed Service Providers (MSP) can help you take your business, your dreams and your freedom back!
Using an IT MSP like K2 Tech Group can free you from the burden of figuring out the technology you need to achieve your dreams. Most large businesses employ a full IT staff to brainstorm solutions to their goals. Most small businesses owners can’t afford to hire a staff, but IT MSP makes it possible for them to have the same benefits without high costs to their bottom line.

Here’s a look at the top reasons businesses use an MSP according to a CompTIA survey:

Let’s break down the top four:1. Increased efficiency/reliability of IT operations
As shown in the survey results, 56 percent of businesses with over one hundred employees list increased efficiency as the main reason for working with a managed service provider (MSP). According to CompTIA’s report, “60 percent of end users describe their managed services engagement as a collaborative arrangement with their internal IT department, suggesting that certain IT areas fall into the MSP bucket, while others remain in house.” Not only does IT outsourcing help with having an extra team of IT experts able to troubleshoot and remediate issues that arise, small businesses benefit from having access to the latest technology and business-grade solutions that maintain uptime and profitability, such as remote monitoring and management (RMM), backup and disaster recovery (BDR) and cloud computing.

2. Enhanced security/compliance
Laptops, desktops, smartphones, applications, tablets, servers, operating systems, browsers, wearable technology and the like all store and transmit data, and thus require the strictest security measures. As the CompTIA study reveals, security and data protection resonates with small businesses, as they are the ones hit the hardest when a data breach occurs – first in the cost to clean up and inform customers whose data was breached and second in the cost of marketing to repair the reputation of their business. Almost 40% of small businesses do not recover from a data breach. Due to this, compliance is becoming even more of an outsourced IT adoption driver for small business owners, especially with regard to PCI security standards, since many businesses offer e-commerce on their websites.

3. Proactive approach to maintenance
This benefit of managed IT services brings the most freedom to a small business owner on a daily basis. Small businesses don’t want to think about their daily IT operations or second-guess the reliability and speediness of their network connection. They choose to work with an MSP because they will be provided 24/7/365 coverage for potential disturbances and vulnerabilities. The IT MSP proactively worries about this for the business and will resolve these problems before they develop into more critical threats.

4. ROI/cost savings
One of the biggest business values of using an IT MSP is the greater cost savings it provides. IT budgets consist of many items: hardware costs, software and network infrastructure costs and maintenance costs, to name a few. With MSPs offering all the latest technology, the maintenance costs of outdated hardware (which internal IT departments may not have the budget to upgrade) are covered. The expense of IT labor can be the most volatile over-time. With IT MSP, the business can reduce the size of their internal IT department. With the modern IT MSP model, businesses are able to easily predict their IT costs on a month-to-month basis. Most importantly, they can free up more staff time to devote to higher value projects they’re properly equipped to manage, increasing productivity overall.

When shopping for a MSP, make sure you pick the one that is right for your business. Not all MSPs work all fields; they may specialize in one market to ensure proper compliance needs are met. Make sure your business selects a proactive model MSP over a break fix, to reduce costs. If they bill you by the hour for basic help desk, you are in a break fix model where your MSP is reacting to your equipment needs rather than proactively preventing downtime. Lastly, your MSP should enhance your business development, helping you grow by assisting in IT procedure and policy development, as well as providing training on the equipment and programs your business uses every day. If your IT MSP isn’t helping set up workflows, look for a better MSP.